Rewarding A, Hoping for B

When I first read the article I was baffled by the title. Why would reward something while what we really want out of it is something completely different. Then I read on and it all made a lot of sense. The politics example was great because as voters we pick candidates by what they portray to us about their beliefs and plans while in office. As we know politicians think we are stupid and it is because we allow it. Candidates realize that they don’t have to tell us all the gibberish behind their plans just the general idea. We reward for official goals but hope that issues will be discussed operatively even though we don’t reward that aspect. With the war example the difference between lengths of the stay was the key to obedience. In WWII soldiers were only going to go home when the war was won so it was in their best interests to obey their officers and fight. But instead of rewarding the victory, in Vietnam they rewarded based on tour of duty and soldiers were sent home after their tour was up. So, they were rewarding the soldiers time spent there, while hoping for obedience along the way. In medicine, I didn’t find this surprising at all, of course doctors have the pressure to not make a type II error but I’m sure the board of directors profit most from type I errors. It isn’t as bad to make a type I error in a sense because the risk is lesser, so doctors would slack in this error in order to lessen chance of type II error. These examples all show us how behavior A is rewarded, while we just expect that behavior B will follow. This is not true, and I feel that the reward should be made to benefit morality and equity like the article states. In medicine, a doctor should be held to the same standards no matter what the type of error. The soldier should be rewarded for obedience rather than just being there for their time. Politicians should be rewarded for their objective goals instead of allowing them to make us look stupid time and time again by spoon feeding us.